Katarina froze and stared. “You deliver your own pack to these vile scientists? That is despicable even for you.”
“Why?” her father asked with a grin. “It saved me the trouble of killing them. I will not tolerate rising rebellions in my pack.”
Katarina closed her eyes. The truth was worse than Brandi and Gareth feared. “What have you done with my friends? Their people will look for them and find you.”
“Doubtful. Canada is a safe country for brilliant scientists who make big discoveries.”
Frowning, Katarina glared at him. “Delusions!” she shouted as she waved a hand. “You have so many delusions. I should have killed you long ago. This is big mistake I must fix.”
Her father lifted a finger. “Before we fight, disrespectful female of my loins, you must defeat my new beta. I convinced him to renounce his old pack for mine.”
Katarina stared as a deformed male rose from his spot against the wall and walked over to stand by his father’s side.
“Edward?” she asked.
This close, she could see the deformed male was a deformed wolf in human form. Reed’s former beta didn’t answer. He howled. His eyes were wild with bloodlust.
“What have you done?” Katarina asked.
“Ask Edward. He can explain it to you better than I can,” her father said with a chuckle as he turned his back and walked to the corner of the room. “Look up, Katarina. The fate of your so-called friends is to be sparring partners for those like Edward.”
Katarina tilted her head up to look in the direction her father ordered. On the other side of a glass divider, she saw Brandi, Gareth, and an assortment of other shifters dangling in cages. Was that the entire team? She searched and searched, but saw no sign of Reed.
She looked back at her father in dismay.
“There are seven rooms like this one. Some are bigger. All of them are ready to receive the Black Wolf pack when our team goes after them. It took us a while, but we finally found a tranquilizer delivery system that works without fail. Bringing in bears will mean a tremendous bonus for me. Too bad informant turned out to be a wolf in lying sheep’s clothing.”
Yana. Stewart. They were going after the entire village. They would dust everyone there. How could she stop this from happening? Reed, she thought. He was their only chance. Reed had to wake up, and she had to let him know.
Please Nicolai, she prayed. Please lead him to right things.
“I waited entire life for chance to show you what it means to be real alpha. Today is very good day,” her father said. “Now you fight for life while I watch my created wolf do what I have dreamed of doing. If you win against him, only then will I enter fight myself.”
Katarina balled her fists and howled in frustration while her father laughed.
Edward—Reed’s former beta turned monster—tackled her from the side with all his might and knocked her flat. His teeth snapping near her throat meant business. She grabbed his waist and rolled Edward over her. It was a perfect defense move for someone her size. He skidded across the floor, flipped over, and sprung to his feet, intending to return.
Katarina rolled slowly to her side and climbed to her feet. Her wolf screamed at her, but she would need her wolf form to help kill her father. This meant she needed to fight Edward as human… and she had to win.
A red haze dropped over her eyes as she stared at the deformed wolf running toward her. Katarina caught him in a dead run, lifted his massive body above her head, and then slammed him to the floor at her feet. The poor creature curled in pain, but she could show no mercy in front of her father. They might kill the deformed wolf in human form for failing.
Praying Edward’s pack would understand when this story filtered back to them, she walked to the fallen wolf, lifted his head, and punched him hard—multiple times. Eventually, the wolf’s head fell to the side and did not raise again.
Dragging Edward out of the circle by one leg, Katarina slung him against the wall. “Done,” she said, glaring at the male who stared at her in shock. “Enter the ring, Father. Enter the ring with me and meet your destiny.”
Not looking back to see if her cowardly parent followed her, Katarina walked back to the middle of the circle and turned patiently to wait for her challenger to show up.
17
Stewart woke in a cold sweat. “No,” he screamed in his new and deeper male voice.
In seconds, Kent and Aggie were by his side. Other than his mother, they were the only ones who understood the emotional toll his visions took on him. Both his siblings waited until he stopped shaking to ask questions. He rubbed his face and tried to decide what the impending doom feeling was trying to tell him. Could they really be returning so soon?
Stewart suddenly felt more people in the room and turned to see both Ariel and Jon in the doorway. He swallowed his fears of being misunderstood by two such powerful people and blurted out what he saw.
“White powder will rain from the sky. I think a plane spreads it. Whatever it is works like a tranquilizer does. It will affect all the wolves. Some bears will be affected too. Those it doesn’t work on will be left conscious to fight to their deaths. We can’t let that vision come true. The attackers are after all of us this time.”
Aggie reached out and ran a hand over Stewart’s forehead. “It was very brave of you to tell everyone about your vision. I can see you really have grown up.”
Stewart swallowed. “But I do not understand how to stop them. Why can’t I have a vision about that? Terra’s just getting well. As a human, she’ll have no defense against an attacker. There are too many innocents here.”
Kent paced back and forth by the bed. “I think we don’t want to stop them. Instead, we will want to lay a trap for them. We need a few volunteers to make them think they were successful so the rest of us can make a plan to take the bad guys out for real.”
Ariel snorted from the doorway. “And I suppose you have the perfect plan, Kent Longfeather?”
“No,” Kent admitted, chewing his lip. “Mom says no plan is ever perfect, but I think what I have in mind will work.”
Jon looked at Ariel. “Do you believe these children and their stories?”
“Stewart is like Brandi. Among wolves, they’re considered pack visionaries. If the boy says trouble is coming, you can bet your giant bear's ass he’s right.”
Jon swept a hand into the room. “Devil wolf is trustworthy, but surely you don’t want to use the plan of a boy who wishes to be dictator.”
Kent sighed and put his face in his hand. “Katarina argued me out of my ideas of what being an alpha means. She was teasing me about becoming a dictator. Look… I honestly only want to help everyone. How long will take one of you to make a plan? Because I’ve already come up with three strategies in my head to keep this from happening. What makes me the most qualified alpha in the camp to do it is that I’ve been mitigating Stewart’s visions for a long time now.”
“You can trust my brother,” Stewart said with a nod. “Kent’s the smartest person I know when it comes to perfecting strategies. He keeps Aggie and me out of trouble all the time—or at least, most of the time.”
Aggie giggled when tiny Kent turned to stare at the grown-up Stewart in shock. Stewart lifted an eyebrow and stared back. Aggie sighed and pressed both hands to her tiny chest.